A Castle Falkenstein Campaign

Pyotr Alexandrovich Popov

Description:

Pyotr is of average height and build, has a goatee with close cropped brown hair and green eyes. His home, or workshop really, is where he spends a great deal of time making and breaking things, but he is definitely a fan of the “gentleman’s sport”.

Current Fortune Hand: AS, 8H, AC, JC

Bio:

Introduction
Pyotr Alexandrovich Popov was born to a well-to-do family in St. Petersburg, Russia. In his childhood he was not the most physically fit child, nor the largest. His father had obscure ideas of what proper behavior for a child was and saw to it that Pyotr’s physical aspects were challenged when any of these “rules” were breached. On several occasions when Pyotr had disobeyed the family hounds were set upon him chasing him for hours across the family lawns. On other occasions his father would “leak” embarrassing information to the local bullies about him in order to have him beat up by a gang of kids, all bigger and stronger than little Pyotr. Lying to the family, if caught would land his tongue in a pair of pliers. Such was the life of this young man.

To escape the torment of his father, Pyotr turned to learning how things worked. Anything that he knew would not be missed would be taken apart and studied to find out how it worked, sometimes he was able to piece the object back together in working order and return it to it’s rightful place in the house. The successes were few and far between in the beginning, but as he learned more the success rate began to grow, almost exponentially. On one fateful occasion when his efforts to return the family oven to working order did not go as expected, Pyotr fled before he could be discovered in the vicinity of the scene of the crime. He ran until he could run no longer, lost and exhausted he searched for a place to rest. After some time he finally came upon a group of dwarves, begging for sanctuary, he eventually got them to agree to shelter him for the night. The place they took him to was a workshop, where he was fed and allowed to rest in return for cleaning up after the craftsmen. Pyotr promised to return daily after his lessons to repay the kindness of several days of shelter. True to his promise, after returning home, every day after school Pyotr would return to the workshop to cleanup after the dwarfish craftsmen. Weeks turned to months and the months turned to a year and even after repaying his debt he continued to return. Eventually a trust was earned mutually and Pyotr was trained and allowed to attempt his own creations.

In school Pyotr received high marks, not top, but high enough to place him in an elite group of students whose futures would eventually be controlled by the Tsar himself. Education came easily enough and still left time to learn more about the world around himself. Eventually earning admission to the St Petersburg Academy of Science, which only takes 20 students per year. The dwarves of that initial workshop made contacts with others who were closer to the St Petersburg Academy and an invitation was sent to the young scholar. So his education was duplicitous by day learning from books at the academy, by night learning the true trade.

This mutually beneficial arrangement continued through Pyotr’s final year at the Academy, when one day during his normal classes Pyotr was excused from Theory of Mechanics to meet with a special visitor. This visitor turned out to be an officer of the Okhrana, the Tsarist Secret Police. Pyotr was provided with a proposition no normal person would refuse, become a mole in the dwarf workshop, or loose everything he held dear. His choices he knew were accept the deal, die, or vanish. Knowing that the final semester ended in two weeks, he hatched his plan. He would seemingly play along with the ruse feeding false information to the Okhrana contact and also alerting his dwarfish allies to the plan. On graduation day Pyotr completed his formal studies attaining “the ring”, a special graduation gift from the Academy marking him of the Russian elite academics in the field of engineering. And then he just vanished from society and the Russian Empire. Years later he would surface again only for short periods of time selling inventions to those who could or would buy them, only to vanish again and repeat the cycle.

Having made allies with the dwarves and eventually impressing with his abilities and skills, he was finally introduced to Rhyme Enginemaster, reknowned in your circles as the mastermind who developed Engine Magick (the fusion of sorcery and science). Who recruited Pyotr and his services to the Second Compact.

Virtues and Vices
Pyotr Alexandrovich Popov will forever be scarred by the obscure rules of proper behavior impressed upon him by his father. He is fond of boxing now after all those years of the beatings in his youth and frequents the ring.

Enmities and Alliances
Due to the way he left his former life Pyotr has earned the ire of the Okhrana, and gained trust of the Dwarves.

Goals
To be known as the best inventor of this age.
To one day find the love he left behind.
Live to see the downfall of the Okhrana.

Regrets
Pyotr regrets that when he left home he never got to say goodbye, to protect those he loved.